War on the Sea - Tokyo Express Mod || USN Campaign || Ep.32 - Iron Bottom Sound Gets New Residents.

[@darkstock5103]

The fact that you didn’t lose a single cruiser in a fight against a Battleship or Battlecruiser is astounding

[@tmo_117]

It definitely is I went up against some lost everyone

[@patrickhamilton9242]

It’s just kind of stupid honestly. It makes me appreciate the series a lot less. Four(?) kills against carriers in surface engagements, almost zero damage from enemy air attacks, basically 90% success rates in air raids, laughably small enemy air cover, then this. It’s entertaining, but come on AI.

[@johnnyboi1125]

25:00 the cutest thing ever...the kingfisher getting some love :)

[@zanaduz2018]

@Wolfpack345 As a suggestion to get better success with your torpedo planes, you should use the historical tactic of "cross-dropping" - have two separate flights come in at the target at angles of 60+ degrees apart. Doing so will force the target to take at least a few hits, as it cannot turn away from an attack without turning broadside into the other.

[@fernandomarques5166]

It also helps when you lead your formation in relation to the target, Wolfpack has a bad habit of beggining his attack runs when his squadrons are aft of their target instead of taking a minute or two to position them.

[@jeffreyestahl]

I would also add that he'll get a higher percentage of hits if he uses Line Abreast formations on his torpedo bombers and Line Ahead formations on his dive bombers.

[@jeffreyestahl]

@@mentura7172 The USN didn't originally, but after the IJN carrier pilots handed them their a$$es a number of times in the early war, the USN copied the tactic to good effect.

[@Wolfpack345]

Yeah I agree that I could be more effective if I employed hammer and anvil tactics. In this video I was worried about the zeros jumping my avengers so I wanted to drop my torpedoes as soon as possible. I have to admit though I am not very encouraged to take the time to setup such attacks. The game is already so easy and even without taking the time for proper setup I am still just crushing them. Also I honestly find the air engagements boring...

[@jeffreyestahl]

@@Wolfpack345 Aircraft Carriers do kind of make the game a lot easier. I managed to introduce 1 early in my USN campaign (I have 4 in the theater now), and I just spam all the surrounding area with swarms of float planes and bomb the heck out of anything that comes within 100 nm. At present, the IJN has only 1 CV (that I know of) in the theater, but has only 1 BB (a Kongo class), zero CAs, 5 CLs, and 48 DDs left. I currently 5 10 ship strength groups (including 2 with 2 CVs each). I took a little time to build up the fields around Guadalcanal (expecting some deviousness), so just my land based AC make for a serious fortress in itself, and I'm just playing vanilla. I can only imagine what it would be like having all those additional landbased AC available.

[@raf74hawk12]

Atlanta class cruiser, night battle, iron bottom sound, and an enemy battleship? I was concerned about how this would end

[@steeltrap3800]

LoL, yes. The way this game, and indeed most naval games, unfortunately bloat hit rates through the roof (probably because most people have "Hollywood" and WoWS based 'understanding' of how accurate guns of the day were and thus think full on Michael Bay = 'realistic') means light ships like Atlanta class really aren't much use in surface combat. Hell, don't take one near a bunch of Japanese TR ships or they'll blow you to pieces from 10-12,000yds, which is clearly absurd.

[@ijnfleetadmiral]

"I've never seen the AI be that proactive in evading torpedoes." Hard difficulty. That is all.

[@OriginalWarwood]

They really need to address the spawning location/direction/etc on the Tactical Map. It would be great if the speed, direction, etc from the Strategic Map actually translated to the Tactical Map, so you could better plan and stage the attacks and defense.

[@steeltrap3800]

In my experience they ARE linked. Doesn't mean it isn't somehow screwy for others, however. Not sure if mod might have messed with it? Interesting.

[@jeffreyestahl]

One thing I'd love to see would be if aircraft would stop behaving like ships at sea. Any good fighter pilot knows that when you overshoot the target, you don't bank, you go vertical and use your energy to pull either an Immelmann or Invert-S then drop on your target again. That would also reduce the kill ratios of fighters attacking bombers too. I have AI collisions turned on. I figure if I have to worry about steering, so should they. They did seem to figure it out, actually having broader formations too.

[@BobTheBald2]

What might help with the avenger torpedo runs is hammer and anvil. Send one flight in aimed at the right bow and one flight in toward the left bow so no matter which way the target turns it had torpedoes running at it.

[@haydenc2742]

Man that last surface battle really seemed to switch back and forth on who was going to win...once your torpedo's got into the mix, that is when the tide really turned

[@Dv087]

One of the best episodes so far. Almost a fair fight. The AI at least used some strategy and evasion. A refreshing change.

[@peterkragelund4794]

The killing of so many Zeroes by the Dauntlesses looked a bit a-historical to me. But I do believe we saw the effects of superior radar-controlled night gunfire in Iron Bottom Sound. The japanese should have launched their Long Lances a lot sooner.

[@jwrockets]

Dauntlasses, when not carrying bombs, were deadly against Zeros. As dive bombers, they could pull more G's in a turn.

[@scottperry7311]

Yes to some degree you are correct. Though the Zero and many other Japanese planes were not able to sustain much damage unlike American aircraft. Zeros were built for manuverability and long range, but to do this they lacked armor and self sealing fuel tanks. Even the twin .30 cals on the back of a Dauntless were pretty dangerous to Zeros. In fact there are stories where Dauntless acted like fighters and shot down Japanese aircraft with there forward mounted .30 cals. The Dauntless was a very tough aircraft and pretty maneuverable, and also very well armed. They were used pretty late into the war even though they were an old design and technically out of date, but the Helldiver which was to replace it was not a very good aircraft. The main issue I see here is that the Zeros would never (with experienced piolets) have attached the Dauntlesses from behind or above because of those rear mounted .30s. They would have come in from below where there would have been no or minimal defensive fire. I remember reading the book "Zero" it was about a Japanese ace that fought at Guadalcanal. He had flown down to Guadalcanal, some 900 miles I believe, and assisted in an attack. He was a very skilled piolet. During the battle he saw a formation of American planes. He decided to attack from below because of the rear mounted .30s, but it was a flight of Avengers and they have a rear bottom mounted machine gun. The Avengers ripped apart his Zero, he was shot in the face and temperarly blinded. Though he lost the sight in one eye he eventually could see again and though blurry he was able to navigate all the way back to base, like I said before some 900 miles away. A really incredible story, and one showing the skill the Japanese pilots from the early war had.

[@peterkragelund4794]

@@jwrockets Maybe, but these were carrying bombs.

[@mattdamutt5681]

Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to concentrate on other ships for bombing runs, since the planes couldn't do much damage. Also avoid sending small squadrons into large fleets. The real fatal error, though, was made by the Japanese destroyers who broke off from the fleet. They were so hungry for your destroyers that they ended up trapping themselves with no escape between the American destroyers and cruisers.

[@TheFunguy02]

Kinda wish the map was larger but I could only imagine how annoying trying to micro scout planes across the whole pacific.

[@ToreDL87]

Thats one of the many things I like about Pacific Storm, you can have a outpost/base do automatic scouting.

[@flixri726]

U can "kinda" automate the scouting, by letting it fly in pattern with the base as the center. The problem is, that they all use a north bearing, so this is only usefull for basic "routine" scouting.

[@jeffreyestahl]

Frankly, I'd love to see more automatic stuff, like whenever an enemy group is within air or port range, something more than just 'spotting' occurs. E.g.. most bases in the Pacific for both the USN and IJN had PT-boats or MTBs. There should be a percentage chance of damage from harassment by the automated defenses. It would give an actual reason to upgrade ports.

[@a.g.3540]

The AI handles the use & deployment of aircraft carriers badly, i.e. unlike they were used in the real world. As the player WP quite rightly deploys his carrier/s separately to his gun line i.e. close enough to support his ground forces and ships but far enough away that they can hide/run from the enemy. The AI on the other hand has its carriers sticking with its battle ships like glue, sailing right down the center of the slot! Its basically set up to lose.

[@Wolfpack345]

Agreed. It is silly that the ai is running down the slot with carriers.

[@info7809]

I'd love to see some Airacobras and or rockets before the end of this great campaign

[@jacobhill3302]

Gotta magically fast forward to 1944 for rockets unfortunately, maybe late 43 not sure

[@snigie1]

Oh and at least one banzi run, it's 100% possible

[@MandolinMagi]

@@jacobhill3302 THe P-38s get HVARs, which as absurd but then they also shouldn't get that many bombs until 1944 either. Most of the plane loadouts seem to be more rule of cool than realistic in the mod

[@thinkhappythoughts8098]

Another superb episode. Was so pleased to see it when i got home. Thanks Wolfpack, great work.

[@darrenwillett3184]

Ironically, the Nagato was the only Japanese battleship to survive WWII.

[@Hunterstiq]

I wish hitting the pagoda tower was a severely crippling hit. That's command and watch officers injured or killed at the very least. I think AI doesn't take it into account when making the decision to rtb for repairs. However, it lead to an epic night fight. Japanese firepower verse American quick maneuverable attack force. At night, that maneuverability won out. Absolutely awesome

[@pepesilviasmail7099]

I thought that same thing. Maybe decreased fire control or slower executions of orders after a serious hit to the bridge would be an easy patch. Just spitballing…

[@kapitankapital6580]

I dunno how it stacks up to historical accuracy but from a balance perspective AA in this game feels kinda weak. Like yeah it'll shoot down a decent number of slow bombers but very few of them before they've dropped their payload. Even with proper anti-aircraft cruisers like the Atlanta I rarely manage to even put a dent in an oncoming air attack before the bombs have dropped.

[@firestorm165]

The Japanese type 96 anti aircraft gun is widely considered to be the worst AA gun of the war with good reason

[@EdwardDowner]

But that's counterbalanced by the (relatively) small waves of aircraft you can send.

[@Cuptow]

I think it's rather accurate, these aren't vast masses of over 50 ships of late war, there hadn't been a focus on kamikaze attacks yet which lead to the mounting of as much AA as possible, and the fleet would be screened initially by destroyers with dual purpose primaries, which were also lost to kamikazes for their efforts, preventing carrier flight operations by forcing evasion of bombs helped during the battle of Midway, as time constraints, rearming and recovering aircraft was a difference maker, that even missed bombs by sorties that lost numerous crews in each attempt, did leave their impact on history for their efforts.

[@kapitankapital6580]

@@EdwardDowner I don't think that balance is really sufficient though given the fact that there is essentially no cost to losing planes. Even though the flights are small, they still easily get through and can do significant damage to fleets, and it doesn't really matter that you lose a couple on the way out when your entire wing can be replaced within a day.

[@jaredrevis4594]

The Japanese had very poor anti-aircraft doctrine. If you read Mark Peattie's book Sunburst, he explains how the Japanese had no equivalent of the CIC to coordinate AA on a single ship, let alone between ships in a formation. Neither AA fire nor appropriate AA formation was coordinated by the Japanese due to their doctrines

[@jamesscalzo3033]

Loved the video @Wolfpack345! Can't wait for the next video man! The Last Battle at the end of the video reminded me more of The Battle of Tassafaronga than Iron Bottom Sound, and even then the U.S. Navy got their Fantails Handed to them by a Bunch of Japanese Destroyers. You might have to send Santa Fe and San Diego back for Repairs as they both have Heavy Damage and Moderate Flooding (see Timeframe 39:16 with the After Action Report), HMAS Sydney could do with some Long Overdue Repair and Replenishment as well since she's got some damage on her leaving her behind everything. Everybody else can stay in the Area and Protect the Convoys coming into the New Georgia Sound (aka "Iron Bottom Sound") with the Troops, Fuel, Supplies and Engineering for Guadalcanal and the Florida Islands.

[@SammySathya]

It was a longer than usual wait for this installment. But it was well worth the weight. What a fight. Great work Wolfpack

[@fisticuffs6767]

you disappeared from my feed, glad to see your videos back in the mix. binge watching now..

[@flyingfortress15]

4:05 I can see the movie scene already

[@techforthedisabled9514]

I'm addicted to watching you play this. I watched all of you ijn and usn.

[@allosaurusboi]

That was a satisfying video. Especially when the Tone was going down. your content is always fun to watch in my free time

[@XxMrRoachxX]

40min episode? Count me in!!! I like the longer videos.

[@stokerboiler]

Splitting their line. Nelson would approve.

[@e.kent.d9561]

Was in a bad mood when I started watching, but now I am happy. Thanks.

[@jamessweet5341]

The screening torpedo attack sounds like a good idea, especially at night.

[@stevenahlberg1542]

Thank you so much for another episode I love this series. I even watched the commercials hoping that it will help you out

[@scottperry7311]

Two big problems with this battle. The Japanese never sent an aircraft carrier down the slot, that was tactically stupid. Second, the Japanese were notoriously good at knowing when to fire their torpedos. They would have fired them as soon as they could have and at the formation sailing south. Japanese torpedos, which were called "Long Lance" torpedos were the best in the world at the time. They were larger, faster, and had a far longer range than any other torpedos at the time, either Allied or Axis, and they knew exactly how to use them. In the Guadalcanal campaign American and Australian ships were constently struck by these torpedos, and they did a lot of damage and sank quite a few allied ships. As a side note however. Despite the effectiveness of Japanese torpedos, no American Cruiser was sunk by just one, 10 US Cruisers were sunk during WWII. Yet despite the poor quality of American torpedos and they inferior ability, several Japanese Cruisers were sunk by just one U.S. torpedo. This speaks to the quality, or lack thereof, of American and Japanese ships, and to their damage repair crews. American damage repair crews were very good.

[@kafaifong4427]

The SBD gunner shooting down Zero like target practice

[@zhicaofang2354]

Wolfpack having a bit of cyber revenge for the US Navy the day after Pearl Harbor Day :)

[@acun4075]

As usual love the videos! I almost enjoy watching your narrated videos than playing the game now.🤣 I wish the AI was a little better, but the truth is if you can survive the first few encounters and get some flow its all easy after that. Overall though about 400 hrs of game time I still come back to it, can't wait to see what they add to the game.

[@Jollyroger1096]

Love your play by play for the action. I'm really looking at picking up this title for my Steam collection. Thanks again for the posts.

[@kendrickkelly2336]

Wow. Kudos for a very exciting episode! Great in-game camerawork as well, WP!

[@animalmother5728]

Watching those dauntless bombers versus the zeros and shooting them down was very entertaining to say the least

[@derekoliver7045]

Awesome series, glad to see you play it out so long. Keep up the great content

[@gequitz]

Wow those Dauntless tail gunners are kinda OP

[@Nitram4392]

I mean: 1. There were a lot of them. 2. The zeros were really close. 3. They were moving slowly in relation to the Dauntlesses.

[@gequitz]

@@Nitram4392 Perhaps. Maybe it's more that Zeros are underpowered (they should have been shooting more)

[@hillbillykoi5534]

Beautiful surface engagement. Even without the Alabama!

[@bravao3233]

I love the old school Battlestations Pacific music in the intro.

[@_tyrannus]

"You lucky, lucky... cruiser." I laughed. :)

[@kruger2035]

This is my favorite series! Great episode as always.

[@Mr_Unicorn16]

No matter what the aircraft is in the second battle, to him they are all avengers lol

[@choccymuffi]

I can tell this is going to be exciting

[@Spaceman33393]

"enemy battleship spotted!" Now this is an avengers level threat... I'll see myself out after that crap joke.

[@fernandomarques5166]

"We have sighted an enemy ship!"

[@mattthehippy8307]

keep it up buddy, love the footage n commentry.

[@Salem-yk7fs]

Had a cruiser TF consisting of 6 Atlanta class, and 2 Brooklyn class cruisers, came across an enemy TF with 2 Kongo BBs and 6 DD (I think). HE spamed the BBs as I ran, they ended up scuttling both BBs from massive fires that broke out

[@ditzy_neko3362]

Wow what an episode! that was an intense battle at Savo Sound.

[@45CaliberCure]

Nice battle. Thanks for the great series.

[@michaelmontgomery5141]

Great use of air and sea forces with really improved use of guns and torpedoes. I wish my play was as good!

[@WoodlandsArchive]

Thank you Wolfpack!

[@TheRealTburt]

P-38 pilots were told to never turn fight zeroes. They were taught to boom and zoom, hitting them in passes.

[@kpjammerwolf330]

Me who uses the P-38 for turn fighting Zeros and Hayates in Gunship Sequel WW2: Well... Sh*t

[@Wolfpack345]

All planes do in this game is go in circles. They don't climb or use B&Z tactics. It is pretty silly looking.

[@bjorntrollgesicht1144]

Well, I guess that the ease with which the Zeros got shot down could be explained by the Japanese having lower quality pilots, after Wolfpack sent their best to the bottom!

[@Karza_357]

Checked "Iron Bottom Sound" and damn, that place is packed with ships.

[@scottmwilhelms2437]

Additional thought: While the IJN wasn't inept at damage control, in 1942 they certainly weren't Scotty level engineering that this campaign seemed to impart to them for the many miraculous recoveries of critically damaged ships mid ocean sans repair ship in mere hours in between engagements. 🤔 Again seems difficulty is not about making AI more adept but bending if not breaking the game reality and imposing rules only on the player.

[@conmcgrath7174]

Outstanding sir, huzzah!

[@dixievfd55]

I can just hear Jingles narrating these fights as if they were World of Warships battles.

[@maxflug8008]

YES i‘ve been waiting for this!

[@stokerboiler]

Too bad about Alabama. Alabama vs Nagato would have been interesting. Both use 16 inch guns.

[@williwass6837]

Love the Campaign,but slowly it gets absurd and ridiculous!

[@mooncatt79]

Woo been waiting for this

[@crazywarriorscatfan9061]

The title is great

[@stephenfarthing3819]

This Japanese Battleship is running away because her Captain thinks that there's a couple of Battleships in the background. That happened to the Graf Spee in 1939.

[@nealboswell8786]

"You may fire when ready Smedley...er Gridley".

[@kpjammerwolf330]

The fact that the large flight of SBDs destroyed most of the Japanese squadron rather than the Lightnings

[@weldonreed1950]

Love your channel!

[@timjerrom7173]

Another part of your epic WWII adventure.

[@junkyarddog8277]

Hunt that battleship down, godspeed.

[@garyhendershot9153]

You putting together Taffy-3? I want to see that!

[@reganmahoney8264]

Love this series….

[@Lornharding]

wow 40 minutes, was this our christmas present?

[@kevinjohnson8220]

That was amazing to watch

[@m.gilangwiradhan9981]

To think it still not end🥺 thank for continue

[@kfckillie1]

That was brilliant....

[@flexyco]

Hey Wolfpack, I've been watching a number of Uboat videos. I like how you do stuff. But I'm wondering. Do you have any vids with managing damage control on the U606?

[@Zain-fi]

God that Nagato is impressive

[@RemoraDFC343]

Might have made more sense to ignore the enemy carrier and sink the battleship. During night time surface battle, they cannot launch planes, so it would have been a better tactical decision.

[@copter2000]

You always fly your B-25 way too low. Consider upping it to atleast 8000ft.

[@blackvulture6818]

At this point you can probably cross from Guadalcanal to Savo without getting your toes wet by jumping from mast to mast

[@wardkerr2456]

Nice shootout. Pity the AI did so poorly with the DD's torpedo launches, but its evasion protocols seem to have improved.

[@jazimmerman9792]

If you could please get an Iowa class Battleship if they are available

[@JessWLStuart]

Nice job

[@deathratt8372]

great fight!!!

[@Zulgurub]

Nice fight!

[@idv1328]

The Japanese needed more iron in their diet!

[@tugboats79]

I would love to see Iowa class battleship before end but it seems like its not going to happen... 😅

[@daphnetrzaska8873]

They came in 1943 and i think this is 1942

[@tristanbentz224]

some battle stations pacific music in the intro

[@rodrigogoncalves6165]

Any plans for a coop campaign with Tortuga on IS2?

[@daveb.4383]

While in this big battle with the battleship I understand a lot of your reasons for your tactics, and it is easy for us to comment after the fact and during your battle watching it and I hope you also go back and watch it as well to see missed ideas for future play throughs as well?! But when ships are really clumped up together why not concentrate fire on those ships? Seeing so many are close together you are more likely to get hits on multiple targets at the same time firing into that area of ships are you not than getting so many misses?

[@jeffreyestahl]

I've noticed that the AI doesn't fire torpedos until about 3000-3500 yds out.

[@robind.8695]

I think at that point you might as well have attacked the Nagato with your Heavy Cruisers

[@davidingbar846]

I've found I have to micro high speed gun runs with p38s

[@CasualClinkz]

Hope this isn't the last episode but if they have to make the campaign longer!

[@mayersimchasandman9147]

I think one of the reasons that the lightnings are doing so poorly against the zero are in this game they are using tactics for the lightnings that they were never meant to employ. In world war II the lightnings would not have a traditional turning dog fight with the zeros they were much faster than the zero so they would do slashing attacks

[@thegungadfly8930]

Torpedo runs! Yes!

[@DokturProfesur]

If you play Tokyo express with the Japanese a small challenge suggestion I'd like to see is when you tell your planes to commit to an attack you let them carry it out, even if the ship is sinking.

[@larryphilipp1761]

Hey wolf i got this game but i cant find the tokyo express mod anywhere

[@Billy-I-Am-Not]

You shouldn't use AP bombs. Their Armor penetration is meager at best, and they have extremely small explosive payloads. Even against battleships it's better to completely saturate the target with HE/GP bombs. Enough 1000 lb GP bombs will sink a battleship, often quicker than the same number of AP bombs

[@toddshryock1634]

Would be nice if the AI maintained some sort of battle formation and didn't break into chaos after the first shot. Also, are there no corsairs in this game?